No hugs for me

Although amply proportioned like an old sofa, I am not comfortable with public hugging. I do not think that consenting adults should be forbidden to hug in public, but I think hugging is more satisfactory in private settings.

In other words, keep your hugging hands off me unless you have an invitation.

To that end, I read with alarm a piece that was positioned under my column this morning in the Portfolio section. Its author, Adam Joseph Miller, promotes public hugging. To which all I can say is arrgh!!

As it happens, I once wrote a front-page story on hugging for the PG. Photographer Annie O'Neill and I went out together on the assignment and ended up having to hug each other, which was mortifying for both of us (Annie and I later became great friends when we were sent to Vietnam to cover the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon in 2000, but in 1996 we were not on hugging terms.)

I thought it might amuse you to reproduce the piece here. Note - what I wrote was not my column, but a piece of reporting done for the Close Encounters team, a project that at the time had staff members doing some unusual reporting while having encounters of the journalistic kind.

You will observe that I wrote it in the Mickey Spillane style to give it a bit of an edge. It was a fun excitement, except, of course, for the hugging.

THESE BEARS ARE NOT DANGEROUS, JUST HUGGABLE

By Reg Henry

Post-Gazette Staff Writer

It's a slow day in the newsroom. The boss comes over, says, "Some dames are doing a hugging seminar. Something about bears."

He pushes over a yellowed newspaper clipping, small as a betting ticket but with less promise of a payout.

What's this, boss? Not enough three-alarm fires in this town for a straight-shooting reporter?

Well, maybe the hugging seminar is going on at a hot-sheet joint with some doll whose middle name is Danger.

No such luck. It's turns out to be at St. Margaret Memorial Hospital. We wheel out to Aspinwall with the feeling of an impending hangover.

We go to the conference room. Bears outnumber the people, and these are not the type of bears that play in Chicago or kick out the drunks at a nightspot.

In front of the bears, there are two classy ladies. That's as obvious as a neon sign on a dark night. Kind, friendly, enthusiastic - things you don't see much of on the old City Desk.

So what's the caper?

It turns out Sue Franke, 49, of Murrysville, is a registered nurse and heads a program just starting up called The Special Kids Network, which provides information and support to families who have children with special health-care needs.

Her helper with the seminar is Sally Johnson, 48, of Penn Hills, health and disabilities co-ordinator with the Allegheny County Head Start program and the Allegheny Intermediate Unit.

You'd think hugging would come as naturally to people as playing the numbers, but apparently not.

Hugging is taught, Franke says, ``because people are afraid to do it because we are a non-touch society, people are afraid to intrude on somebody else's space and they don't want to be accused of harassment or molesting.''

Yeah, sure, but why hug anyway?

Hugging, they say with a warmth that would melt ice cubes in the Arctic, is one of the essentials of a happy life. It reduces stress, dispels loneliness, opens doors to feelings, builds self-esteem, helps premature babies and comforts people in hospitals.

To help a hug-deficient society, Franke started "hug therapy" when she did graduate work at Penn State. "I come from a family of huggers and did some research and put the program together.'' It really took off when she got the support of Shadyside Hospital six years ago.

It is more than OK to hug, they say; it's vital for both children and adults.

"In my background,'' Franke says, "I was covering patients in the hospital and people are very frightened ... they are away from family and friends, and when you offer someone a human touch in a hug it makes them feel so much better about themselves.''

Sometimes hugs work as well as a pain pill. "My patients would ask me for a hug instead of pain medicine because it would help calm them down,'' Franke says.

With a slide show, they explain 12 different types of hugs.

The A-Frame. Ankle Hug. Waist-Grabber. Bear Hug. Cheek-to-Cheek. Grabber-Squeezer. Group Hug. The Guess-Who? Hug. Heart-Centered Hug. Side-to-Side Hug. Top-of-the-Head Hug. And Variations.

This seems like more positions than the Kama Sutra, but they don't have to land you in the hoosegow. "Hug therapy is always nonsexual, is very caring and compassionate," Franke says.

The secret to avoiding trouble, Franke says, is to always ask the potential huggee first and be sensitive to a person's feelings.

Not everyone likes being hugged and it can be cultural. "People from Northern European countries, Scandinavians, Germans, British, they're less likely to offer a hug than somebody from the Southern Mediterranean like the Italians or the Greeks - they are more likely to touch and be affectionate in public,'' Franke says.

Teddy bears are used in the hug therapy. "It's just amazing what teddy bears will do," Franke says. Even a grizzled reporter realizes that it's impossible to dislike anyone who gives a quote like that.

At the end of the session, there are some practice hugs. This is a dangerous moment for a reporter and a photographer who are not usually hugged on the job.

There's no hiding either. Only two other people are in the audience, hardly a quorum for a teddy bear's picnic, plus the presenters and a PR person for St. Maragret's, who says the same seminar the previous day had attracted 50 people.

Teddy bears are distributed. There's no getting out of the joint without a bear.